Anyone else dislike/hate/rage digital only downloads?

Steam sales are amazing right now, $5 for Fallout New Vegas, $10 for every GTA game, etc. If they were DVDs (or even could be separated from Steam onto an SD card) I'd be jumping on this. I suppose its because I know that if Steam were to go belly up they have worded their EULA to make it so they are not responsible with providing we the users with what we have paid for in a fashion that is still playable.

Now for things that are 100% not available through physical means I can't complain too much. I'd also expect to pay a small premium simply for the fact that I'm getting a tangible box, box art, game disc and some sort of manual. Though the Halo Anniversary release had a manual consisting of less than 10 pages...

For digital? I feel like I'm getting fleeced by buying something that I am not guaranteed possession of. Ever!

 

I couldn't care less about if something is digital only anymore. All you get with a physical copy is a stupid DVD case and a crappy "manual" these days.

 

I hate console digital downloads, for example it was not that long ago that Sega had the 3D ages series and game came with lots of gubbins including scanned original manuals and flyers, other extras including other country versions and various display modes and decent colour manual all for 2500 yen. Now you just get a download with not much else. Some of the stuff that Sega have done, would have been a nice disc collection with a number of other thigs for a sligthly higher price.

I can see why people like digital downloads, but I for one will not buy anything unless i can own the physical product in my hand, which I can sell at a future date if I need to. How many Xbox 360s have been sold with 30 games, with all of them on the HD as digital downloads whcih have really effected the price of the base unit? Not too many I should not think.

The more peope download stuff the more likely it is that more and more stuff will be download only... and you know where that might lead to.

 

When games like Final Fantasy VII are being sold for much more than it's worth, it's nice to have a choice to purchase it on PSN for $10. Digital downloads also let smaller studios release games without the cost of retail production and lets larger studios provide short, yet good arcade games with a release that would have essentially wasted a disc. That's how it works in theory.

In practice, we have games like Mass Effect 2 which stayed $60 on PSN months after the retail copy was $20. Companies are abusing digital downloads and make no mistake, they want physical copies to disappear. Companies are beginning to use awful "Eco" cases and removing manuals entirely to "save the environment". A disc has resale value, data on a hard drive doesn't. When you spend $60 for a digital copy of a piece of shit, you can't resell it and "take away from a new sale".

Because as we all know, a used sale is a great evil, worse than piracy. When we buy a used game, we take money from the hard working men and women who were kind enough to give us an online pass, cut content that's later resold as DLC, and an overall buggy, incomplete game. Those poor, poor developers...:crying: (That was sarcasm, by the way. )

 

I NEVER BUY DOWNLOADS. One day I might, but the game has to be very very good as a download medium only. Eventually the download support will go away as newer consoles push aside the older one. When your console dies then you lose all the purchases. Steam could die or drop support for older titles years from now. There are console download purchased games that are no longer available on XBL/PSN.

Case in point, I have free demos downloaded to my Wii. Bit.Trip and three other demos. I visited the Nintendo site the other day and one can no longer download them. There are four other free demo downloads, so I snagged them. I'm hooked on the side scrolling truck demo game, I now have eight demos on my SD Card. These are still volatile though since they are locked to my Wii console I.D. Fortunately Bit.Trip which was a download purchase can now be bought on disc. Geon Cube is another game on a Wii disc, a download on other consoles. A simple choice which version to buy.
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I don't get why people care about eco cases. It's a goddamn case. How much time do you spend looking at the case of a game? It's probably going on the shelf and forgotten about in around 5 minutes.

(On a side note, my copy of UMvC3 was apparently an eco case where they forgot to not include the parts they weren't supposed to :lol

 

I couldn't agree with you more!

 

I care, and for one simple reason: They suck. When I bought Soul Calibur 3 (used, I don't think new copies had eco cases), the cover had holes and lines in it from the stupid design of the eco case. When I bought Tales of Vesperia and Resonance of Fate (both new), I had to baby the cases in order to leave to cover relatively intact. If I grab it too hard or in a spot with holes in it, I ruin the case that holds the game I spent my money on. I had to buy backup green 360 cases just in case a game I buy comes with the stupid eco design. I shouldn't have to do that.

I've also heard reports that the thing in the center that holds the disc is cheap and will crack the disc over time. I wouldn't know since now I replace the case the second I see the game comes with that cheap plastic crap.

 

Sega used eco friendly cases back in the Genesis days for a handful of games. Sonic and Knuckles is a big one and IIRC (don't feel like checking) Vectorman 2 did as well. Problem was their idea of being "green" was to use cardboard which will obviously decompose while plastic won't. Thing is the cases were so flimsy that most people didn't bother to keep them as they fell apart.

Now it is rather hard to find a cheaply priced Sonic & Knuckles with the box in decent shape. If it was some kind of "green" case made in a way that was still sturdy I'd not mind but so far they are all made of garbage that ends up in a landfill anyway thus negating any sort of environmental benefit.

And as Prometheus has mentioned he went and bought NEW cases just to replace the garbage cases provided. If they had done it right the first time there would be less material and energy used. Instead they make the problem worse.

As for the DVD, I want the DVD. Steam can take away your account as can a hacker. A HDD crash will take your digitally purchased music (that may not play elsewhere even if you have a backup) as well as your movies. Streaming works fine if you don't wish to own.

What happens to the DLC tied to your 360 account if you get banned? Refund? Nope. Buy the DLC on a DVD or find a 'game of the year' edition and pending the DVDs sale/theft/destruction you won't ever lose access to what you've paid for. I can live without a manual for the most part.

 

Think it's bad now? Just wait until all games are ondemand

I like my games on disc, but I could do without the manual or a fancy case. Something like a cheap "CD single" cardboard would be fine by me and cost very little to produce. Games will still be released physically for some time, I think DLC is a bigger issue now with this generation. There won't be a way to get DLC once the servers are down without resorting to warez rips

 

personally i hate digital only. i only do it because its cheaper. oh and yeah i FUCKING HATE IT ^^ above about the 360 account one that happened to me lost all my dlc everything i have todo some nice glitch to get my content back that M$ stole from me.

I can quite happily say i have never bought a legal download of music if i want a album il buy it! fuck this itunes shit...

i can say the only thing i pay for that i download is games and id prefer to go to a shop and buy a proper copy.

am i old-fashioned for my age thinking that a real disk is better than a download... because none of my friends agree with me

 

My biggest problem with Steam is when I was banned there was no parole. Once you're fucked you're fucked for life and Valve seem to think they are above local and international laws. You could say don't do the crime if you can't do the time, but what happens if you leave your computer running, go for a shit and your friends or family decide to mess about on your game to pass the time?

Before I sold my PS3 I had about £700+ racked up on PSN in under a year. I can get all of that content back should I get another PS3, but I can't afford one any time soon, with my new PC a PS3 is redundant and if I did get another PS3 thanks to my ISP crippling my bandwidth for several hours after downloading a gigabyte or so it would take me an eternity to get the entireity of my content back.

I think digital sales also cheapen gaming experience and I don't mean the lack of tactile contact either. When I can get half a dozen games downloaded in the sales for the price of a single retail copy, the games become disposable and I'm less willing to go the extra mile to find every secret to get my money's worth as I didn't lose that much money to begin with. When you get ripped off at retail you go the extra mile to experience every last bit of polish from a turd. Also the other problem I find is with owning so many games (I have over 100 in 6 months of heavy Steam use) I have too many to know what to play -_-

The OnLive service does alleviate many of my concerns, but given as there is no offline mode I'm reluctant to pay full price for a title or subscribe to one of their packs in case the service goes under though unless my ISP changes its traffic policy or I change my ISP the service is too bandwidth intensive for me anyway. With a decent connection an OnLive subscription would become a strong possibility for me though.

Despite all these problems I can't resist what I perceive to be a bargain though, download exclusive or not.

 

You can be banned from Steam and not be able to play the content you paid for? wow...thats insane.

I read that if Steam goes down they will release something that lets you play without accessing the server.

I think digital downloads become a hassle when your switching from an old machine and new machine and transferring games. Also how its usually tied to one user id, which means you have to remember the user id and password at some later time if you've deleted the game and want to redownload.

 

I prefer physical media simply for resale value. I am not a collector in any way, shape or form so when I beat a game or get sick of it, I take it right to EBgames. Can't do that with digital

 

Yeah, I feel your pain on that Steam issue. I took my laptop with me on a family trip, expecting to be able to get some VVVVV and Super Meat Boy and Jamestown action... only to find that nothing would run, not even in "offline mode" - because the software hadn't been registered on this specific machine.

What's gonna happen to our games on XBLA once the new Xbox comes out? That worries me, too. I have a lot of XBLA software that I'd like to play 20 years from now.

I mean, I play my 30 year old Atari games and my 20 year old NES and SNES games with ease, and I would expect my awesome Xbox and Wii downloaded games to work the same way in 2031.

 

I'm taking a somewhat opposite approach. Purposely buying Steam games to AVOID the potential urge to sell them off in an OCD fueled blaze. Flawed as DRM is... No shelf space, media to get lost/stolen, or optical drive noise, only helps further my resolve.

 

I don't mind small companies / indie games or re-releases of old consoles on digital format only.

What i don't like is full retail games being available only through digital distribution. I was glad that Sony decided to release Wipeout HD Fury on Blu-ray a long time after it's release on PSN Store. Don't know if it's still available in Europe / Japan, but i made sure to secure a copy for me.

Another thing i don't like about digital distribution is that they can charge whatever they want. 60 dollars for a digital game is insane, specially when you can get the disc version for less than that.

 

Digital "copies" are stupid beyond belief, they usually the same price as a physical copy. It's fine if digital copies sold for half or even a little bit more than half but same price!? I'm getting files!

Some people I ask about the matter say digital is good for them because they can't break, lose or scratch their DVDs, BR or what ever.. That's fine but companies should release both versions not ONLY digital or if they do release both versions at least make the digital copy a lot less than the physical copy. I mean, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THEM!? I also thought that companies complained about physical copies costing too much to produce, so why when a digital copy comes out it's the same fucking full price!!!!!??!?!

It's fine for smaller games to be digital, I really don't mind that. Having to download 10GB games is a pain for me and I'd rather a physical copy as I like to collect video games much many of us here.

Another negative point would be HDD space, not everyone has 1TB drives and even at 1TB I started to run out of space cause of digital copies (these were gifts by the way). If I delete them I have to RE-DOWNLOAD 10GB all over again.. It's a pain in the ass!

Well that's all that comes to my hot head at the moment.

 

Worse yet are physical copies effectively digital in disguise. If you're going to sell a game in a box, make it playable and resale-friendly in that form when feasible (MMOs may be an exception).

It's wasteful to have physical games that both give little incentive to use the disc and cannot be played by the new buyer once resold anyway.

 

+1

They dont make them like the used to anymore...